How often do you backup your site and or dedicated server?

[Steve_S]

Please only vote once. This Poll is for folks with virtual sites and dedicated servers. Please share your tips and procedures on exactly how you perform backups. If you are a "host" it would also be helpfull to learn how you perform backups for your clients or if they use a control panel to perform backups. Please do not advertise

Additional questions that should help all of us: What media do you use? Where are the backups stored? What recovery method do you use? How do you backup mySQL data?

One method which I tell folks to run at least every week and which I also use via Telnet to backup an entire site:

tar -cvf - /home/mysite | gzip -c > /home/mysite/backup.tar.gz

Download (Binary) the backup.tar.gz archive and make at least 2 copies of this archive. One copy needs to go on removeable media and stored in a fireproof container off site. I like burning the archive to CD. WinZip does a dandy job of exstracting the contents of this archive if I need to recover data and or files.

And you?

[Steve_S]

AND if I could respectfully suggest based on an email I just received from a third party:

Raid/Mirror on a server/machine connected to the net can be hacked and the drive nuked. Tape in a secure location is better.

[Steve_S]

I certainly hope not Georgie Although it appears we are in the minority. I find this quite surprising and dissapointing.

"An accident waiting to happen" as Dad used to say.

This box even has a tape backup. DI uses the Tivoli Storage Management Backup and Restoration. Sweet

The web interface for manuall stuff is kind of ugly and clunky but the rest is dynamite

[Steve_S]

Georgie Geek

Merry xmas

Yep, I'm very sure that this procedure should never be done.

This issue brought tears to my eyes. One of THE very very best sites in it's space. With an outstanding BB that we all loved. A name you will certainly recognize as it's our very own "Arie"

Read it here:

http://www.infinisource.com/features/hacked.html

Tape or another data center/Host is the only way to go. Preferably behind a firewall. If all else fails a regular download to your local machine which is not connected to the net or sits behind a real firewall.

Buy his stuff and help the cause at:

http://www.rosecitysoftware.com/

He may need some help bringing his BB up <wink> so your outstanding expertise in this area will certianly be helpfull.

[Steve_S]

If you need a shell script to BU your MySQL database which works very well and runs via a crontab see Tip 1 on:

http://www.geekvillage.com/vbulletin_review.htm

It has lot's of options and is rock solid. You may have to tweak the code a bit to make it work.

HTH

[Steve_S]

Amen !

"Better safe than sorry"

Unfortunetly, hard drives don't page you or send you a nice email when they are failing.

[Steve_S]

funny, I was thinking the same thing last night but since my middle name is "redundancy" I had a good nights sleep.

Compliments of the vB GODS and a valuable solution for backups via crontab. Edit to suite your mood and good for any MySQL db.

----Begin:

#!/bin/sh

echo<<header "
################################################## ###
# ---> ATTENTION funky duck ONLY <--- #
# #
# ---> HAVE YOU DOWNLOADED YOUR BACKUPS? PLEASE! #
# #
# Makes multiple backups of my vB mysql data #
# Makes up to 7 backups and then starts over #
# test and run from root as----> sh filename #
# Archives are located in /bath/to/archives #
################################################## ###
"
header

# List all of the MySQL databases that you want to backup in here,
# each seperated by a space
databases="mydbname"

# Directory where you want the backup files to be placed
backupdir=/path/to/store/backups

# Directory where you want an extra backup placed at a specified interval
extra_backupdir=/path/to/store/backups

# MySQL dump command, use the full path name here
mysqldumpcmd=/usr/bin/mysqldump

# MySQL Username and password
userpassword="-uname -pyourpassword"

# MySQL dump options
dumpoptions=""

# Unix Commands
gzip="/bin/gzip -f"
uuencode="/usr/bin/uuencode"
mail="/usr/sbin"

# Maximum number of backups to keep around
max_backups=7

# Backup number at which an extra backup should be made (set to
# zero if you don't want extra backups)
extra_backup=0

# Send Incremental Backup? Would you like the more frequent backup emailed to you?
# Set to "y" if you do or n
sendincbackup="n"

# Send Extra Backup? Would you like the extra backup emailed to you?
# Set to "y" if you do
sendextrabackup="n"

subject="vB_Database"
mailto="webmaster@yourdomain.com"

################################################## ##############

DAY=$(/bin/date '+%Y.%m.%d-%H%M')

for database in $databases
do
sequence_file="${backupdir**/${database**.seq"
if [ -e "$sequence_file" ]
then
read backup_count < $sequence_file
else
echo 1 >> $sequence_file
backup_count=1
fi

# Dump out the database
echo "Working on ${database** database:"
echo -n "-> Dumping database............... "
$mysqldumpcmd $userpassword $dumpoptions $database >${backupdir**/${database**.sql.backup${backup_count**
echo "done."

# Compress all of our backup files
echo -n "-> Compressing database dump...... "
$gzip ${backupdir**/${database**.sql.backup${backup_count**
echo "done."

# Make the additional backup
if [ "$backup_count" = "$extra_backup" ];
then
echo -n "-> Creating additional backup..... "
cp ${backupdir**/${database**.sql.backup${backup_count**.gz ${extra_backupdir**/${database**.sql.$DAY.gz
echo "done."
if [ $sendincbackup = "y" ];
then
echo -n "-> E-mailing additional backup.... "
#$uuencode ${extra_backupdir**/${database**.sql.$DAY.gz ${database**.sql.$DAY.gz > ${extra_backupdir**/${database**.sql.$DAY.gz.uu
#$mail -s "$subject : ${database**.sql.$DAY.gz" $mailto < ${extra_backupdir**/${database**.sql.$DAY.gz.uu
#rm ${extra_backupdir**/${database**.sql.$DAY.gz.uu
echo "done."
fi
fi

# Send the incremental backups via email
if [ $sendincbackup = "y" ];
then
echo -n "-> E-mailing incremental backup... "
# $uuencode ${backupdir**/${database**.sql.backup${backup_count**.gz ${database**.sql.backup${backup_count**.gz > ${backupdir**/${database**.sql.backup${backup_count**.gz.uu
# $mail -s "$subject : ${database**.sql.backup${backup_count**.gz" $mailto < ${backupdir**/${database**.sql.backup${backup_count**.gz.uu
# rm ${backupdir**/${database**.sql.backup${backup_count**.gz.uu
echo "done."
fi

backup_count=`expr $backup_count + 1`
if [ "$backup_count" -gt "$max_backups" ];
then
backup_count=1
fi
echo $backup_count>$sequence_file
echo "Finished with ${database** database! --> funky duck, don't forget to download your archives. PLEASE!"
echo ""

done


----------------------end

[Jan]

Yesterday,
All those backups seemed a waste of pay.
Now my database has gone away.
Oh, I believe in yesterday.

Suddenly,
There's not half the files there used to be.
There's a deadline hanging over me.
The system crashed so suddenly.

I pushed something wrong.
What it was I could not say.
Now- all my data's gone
And I long for yesterday-ay-ay-ay...

Yesterday,
The need for backups seemed so far away.
I knew my data was all here to stay.
Now I believe in yesterday...

[Kathy]

My server has a raid built in which helps for piece of mind....but I run a cron once a week to back up the entire server on to a tape. I have 4 tapes and they are rotated so that I have my server backed up weekly...and have the past month's weekly files available. They are tar zipped in the process.

I've actually used my backup. I can't remember why...but I lost a hunk of data. It took a while to retrieve the data and lost files but it worked.

ALthough I would prefer to back up my server daily (), I figure if something happens, my members would have to understand that we are doing the best we can to keep all data/files/posts but this isn't possible 100% of the time.

[Ted S]

I backup mysql all the damn time (basically whenever I feel like changing anything).... sometimes that means daily, sometimes its weekly but always receently.

As for webfiles, I have all my scripts locally, all configured, etc... most of the images and other content is around on varrious cds and every now and then, we do back it up but thats not my job

[Ted S]

I was sitting around today thinking about the wonderful power outages in NY (not that I was anywhere near them) when I got an email from my host talking about how their server was up but varrious peers were down, etc... Of course that got me thinking... if my site went down and the data was lost, what would it take to rebuild? Sure I've got all the files for all my sites... all the images, scripts, etc... but the database info wasn't backed up anywhere. Needless to say I'm going to be backing it up far more often now!

[singloon]

I backup all mysql databases (0.8GB in total) every 12 hrs onto my server, download a copy every 2 or 3 days to local pc

I probably backup my server 2 or 3 times a month

and for both i transfer a copy to a 2nd server just in case

i hope to have raid disks one day though for added peace of mind

[singloon]

why is this thread being updated (last post date is Nov 1) but last thread i can see is Oct 27 ?? http://geekvillage.com/forums/showth...7605#post77605

[singloon]

Originally posted by sdarken
I think threads get bumped to the top when someone answers the poll (see the top of this thread). I've seen this happen before. It's a bit annoying isn't it.

i'm okay with that just that the last poster on this thread is never the last post creator... it doesn't hapen now.. i.e i saw FC last poster name and indeed there is a last post there

oh well 2.2.0 might have fixed it

[singloon]

Originally posted by singloon
I backup all mysql databases (0.8GB in total) every 12 hrs onto my server, download a copy every 2 or 3 days to local pc

I probably backup my server 2 or 3 times a month

and for both i transfer a copy to a 2nd server just in case

i hope to have raid disks one day though for added peace of mind

from the above polling results, am I the only one who backs up every 12 hrs ????